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Mountaintop Campsite
THE TRACK levelled off again as cloud began to surround the slopes just below us. Thick misty cloud enveloped us for a few moments before clearing again. More small clouds would come and go as we passed more scrub with strange tiny ferns growing off them as epiphytes.
At the pass |
By now I was falling a minute or two behind the rest of the group with Michael and Julia just behind me. We were happy to go at a slightly slower pace and take pictures. Well I was happy to take pictures anyway. I think Michael was still having stomach problems even though he said he was feeling better now. His illness must have really taken it out of him but he had been determined to conquer the Inca Trail. Apparently the worst was behind us.
Mountaintop campsite |
There were a lot more mosses and ferns by the side of the track now, indicating we were getting closer to the permanent cloud forest. Tracts of forest were starting to cover the hills leaving only the bluffs running diagonally across the rounded knobbly tops. Then I noticed the track which had been level since the cave was starting to gradually rise again towards a very small pass.
We reached the summit of the Phuyupatamarca Pass to be greeted with the most unusual sight of a large campsite straddling the side of the hill to the nearby summit. I thought this was a very exposed place to have a campsite, but the wind was calm up here. It was too exposed for trees or even scrub to grow, so it must be a pretty severe location. There were numerous tents with some campsites getting packed up. To the right was the Urubamba River draining the Sacred Valley where we had come from. To the left was the Aobamba River, both unseen over sixteen hundred metres altitude below me.
Wilbur and I at the campsite |
Looking down the side of the mountain to the right I could see through the cloud far below a small town beside the river. Wilbur told me this was the town of Aguas Calientes, where we will be having lunch tomorrow afternoon.
It was a long way down though – a very long way down. It would have been about sixteen hundred vertical metres down and perhaps only two or three kilometres away in the extremely steep terrain.
We walked the short distance between the top of the pass and the main lookout at the campsite called “Phuyupatamarka”, named after a ruin further along the trail. It was not exactly a catchy name by any stretch of the imagination. Here we rested for about ten minutes.
The whole group at the campsite |
Looking further out the mountains gradually tapered off towards the great basin of the Amazon. All the mountain ranges for as far as the eye could see were covered in forest, getting bluer and more faded with distance. There was a lot of cloud in the valleys although the tops were all clear. I crossed my fingers hoping that Machu Picchu was not going to be cloudy like this tomorrow.
We rested at the campsite for about fifteen minutes. There were still people here packing up their tents preparing for today’s walk. Whether they were going to the same campsite we will be staying at tonight, or going all the way to Machu Picchu this afternoon, I didn’t know.
Before leaving, we posed for a few group and individual photos.
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